EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DRIVING THE GIBB RIVER RD - Caravanning Australia E103

[Music] [Applause] [Music] call me the Joker call me the fool when she calls I always here to lose my cool [Music] baby I'm just [Music] your and don't you know that you a train waiting don't you know that you is a train wck waiting to it [Music] is no class all attributes don't know if I'm talking about me or you we're finished we finished again and we're now in canara pulled up to a nice little spot it's the Waterfront waterfront kimbly Land we're on one of the premium sits as you can see right on the lake it's not bad beautiful absolutely beautiful we thought we would just take you through a little rundown of our trip yeah just a few things that we sort of discovered along the way just to sort of help you is if you haven't done it and looking to do it or if you've done it and you've missed something or you haven't gone up to say honeymoon Bay for example well we did we'll um show you what we found out I've um just made a little list on my phone I will be looking at my phone throughout but I just made a list of some questions how many kilom did we travel on the Gibb so I think from memory it's about 660 680 kilm from Derby to canara or from the ends of the Gibb River Road within that I think it was about 480 km of dirt dirt on the actual G River Road we also took the is it the columbaro riv so that's another about 500 km return so I think it's about 280 each way up to Honeymoon Bay and then back down to the Gib R River Road and that's all dirt that's all dirt and it's it goes from being road to trial yeah you go from like that's being generous an actual like you know potentially two lanes and a bit of a pull off to being one lane yeah and praying no one else is coming the opposite direction yeah with maybe there's a pull off somewhere and then it's very corrugated up through there so yeah that's a grand total of 1,000 I think it's about 1200 km we went you do have to travel off the Gib to go down to like Tunnel Creek to go to Bell Gorge as well yeah there's lots of pull-offs to do to see things as well so yeah so it's about 12200 km of dirt and then another 200 odd km of actual black door yeah so it's a it's a fair o distance and there is a number of f stops isn't there yeah fuel along the way so we most of the stations hold fuel there was I think the first one is the energy Community imy which is where B Gorge is then after that you've got M mount baret on the way up to Honeymoon or columbaro you've got dry stale station has Fu there is fuel in columbaro as well but you need a permit to go into the actual town and you can get that from the shop right yeah you just get it from the the grocery store uh and you can get fuel up in columbaro but the fuel is only open there 2 days a week Wednesdays and Saturdays sometimes they do run out of fuel so just it's dependant you may or may not get fuel up there yeah the fuel at the mission isn't it it's at the mission and it was about $3.90 a ler yeah yeah to try and carry what you need but you can't always yeah so you a long way fill up at dry stale on the way up and then on the way back down you can fill up at dry stale again we did find that we use more fuel going from dri to columbaro and back on that road probably about as much as we did on the actual Gibb because the road's just really slow going you can try and do better than 55 you're probably going to break something yeah we did that and we still broke something so the next fuel I think was there wasn't fuel in at elen B there no fuel at El or home valy Home Valley so the next fuel is at um elesto El equestro and then from Al quer I think it's about 80 80 kilm to be out of the Gibb probably 150 to in into um canara yeah from there yeah so fuel I mean I think the fuel prices themselves like the most we've seen was $3.90 but probably sat around the $32 Mark 330 which is what you expect on it's got to travel a long way to get there those type of remote roads it's just it's the cost of the price to do in business so and then what was the next one water we didn't have a problem getting water you pretty much everywhere has water we we just keep an eye out for you know sort of their preferences so there might the one of tabs around but you may not be able to like you know I don't know why you would but you can't like wash your car in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road why would you wash your car but you can pick pick up water and fill your tanks most places of a lot of water we didn't have a we didn't have to go into a creek or anything to get water yeah you don't have to you don't have to do that there's other YouTube videos out there we won't name them that pull up into creeks and fill your water from Creeks you definitely don't need to do that and wonder why they get sick there was water at energy there was water at Mount Barnett there's water at Dale there's water in columbaro water at mall there was water at honeymoon Bay Ellen BR Home Valley Station everywhere we elesto so there's everywhere we stopped there was water everywhere um we filled up our tanks before we left and then we filled up at enery and we filled up at M and that was it wasn't it and we didn't need any more water so we're just we don't like to waste water so we carry what we think we will need and then take what we need only and that way there's enough for everyone to go around but that's just us so I'm drinking water so so I did buy like 7 10 L bottles of water to start the trip that lasted Us 2 weeks and then actually apart from Mount Barnet you can't really buy water you can't buy water on the road at all uh we ended up drinking the water from theow yeah so we filter it as well yeah we filter it when we fill the tanks and that was fine um it didn't have a funny taste or anything to it it was it was great I usually buy the bottled water because standard in wa I don't really like the taste of the water over here but that was fine yeah it's usually a bit hard a bit mineralized but that's get used to it food and supplies food and supplies so we had enough food with us really that to get us through about like we could probably get through about 4 weeks like the last week we would have been eating very random meals and just like pulling things to but we had enough food to cover us for like 4 weeks so we didn't really need to top up anything on the track what I do to help save space is I pre-make meals so I made like a big batch of Mexican mints a big match of mes um a couple of curries just things like that like a stew and I put them in Ziploc bags and then I just freeze them In Those portions and we had about 18 meals Frozen y in the freezer and they just fit in our two little two little tubs in the freezer in the Caravan then we had like a couple of extra pieces of meat here and there we caught some fish we caught some fish we supplemented our meals with what we caught and what we had in the fridge um we ate like the vegetables and stuff we ate through in the first week and then you kind of you just really don't have much fruit and veg after that but if I've already made the meals that's fine we just keep eating those uh heat up some rice heat up some pasta or something and add it with it y you can get small amount of groceries on the track I wouldn't be expecting to get a shop no there is like an IG type thing up in columbaro you need the permit to shop there and fresh fruit and vegetables was like the same type of price that you would get from a normal groceries but the reason being is because um because they're a remote Community they get their fresh produce subsidized pretty heavily so it's it's pretty much the same price keep in mind if you do go to karoo and you do go shopping don't go crazy don't go do on a massive shop they do get enough to supply the town it is a small town you don't want to take all the food away from the people that live there yeah cuz cuz it's it's not like local Metropolitan coals where it gets a delivery every other day no it gets a delivery every 3 weeks but like other things that they have in the shop is very expensive so we did have a look in there like um milk we buy lactose-free milk it was $8 a lader I mean it's just it's just Logistics it's it's the price of shipping and transport it's just how it is because it's in like it's far remote isn't it yeah that it is what it is has to get there by BGE because you can't truck it in but just keep that in mind like if you do need something they probably might have it it's a very limited range but it's going to be expensive uh I think Mount Barnett had a little grocery store nowhere else had anything else really there was was like you might go in find a packet of chips and a drink and an ice cream but that's about it there's not really groceries anywhere else across the track again you know you will find that that's just as expensive if not more so permits the only permits was the parks permits around the equestro wasn't it and then also the town permit in columbaro which you can get at the Super Market the go into or equestro and you can purchase the parks pass there or Emma Gorge yeah so they do a day pass for all the equestro things I think it was $12 for the day that gives you access to all the gorges and all the attractions around elesto yep and then you need the national parks pass yep so you can either buy a monthly ticket for that or a weekly ticket for the national parks um or if you're going to be in wa for a while just buy the yearly pass it's easier and then once you have it you can go to all the wa parks and you don't have to worry again and it was $50 for the permit up at columber Ro so we bought the permit cuz we needed some uh more UNL for the boat and the generator cuz it was so hot really hot and it was so windy too then we have got okay now just talk about timing for a bit so we we spent 23 days on the Gib was it that long yeah I didn't feel like that that long at all so we got off the Gib on the 22nd of September is the end of the season is like the end of September we finished we got off and then 2 days later they closed Emma Gorge and they've just started to close everything cuz it's just gotten too hot far too hot so if you are going to do the Gib try to do it you know earlier rather than later we had done most of the things by the time we got to that very end where they started to close everything we just got through um seeing everything that we wanted to see but definitely probably I think all August would have been a better month July would have even been better cuz it wouldn't have been as hot okay now the road can the road where was the worst section of Road easily from basically between Dale to Honeymoon and Mcall was just crap and got even more so the closer you got Y and it took a bit of a toll on the truck and the van and we have done a lot of pretty rough roads that was the roughest Road for that driven I knew it was going to be rough but we we both knew it was going to be really rough but we we didn't I don't think we ever comprehended how it was going to be that rough yeah and it's really like slow super slow one of the things I do is I download the offline version of Google Maps so I have that on my phone when we don't have service and I had a look like how long is it going to take us to get up to Honeymoon Bay and it was it said like oh it's going to take about 6 hours was about 300 km to get up there and like 6 hours 300 km okay that's all right like maybe it'll take us like 7 hours um but we can do that in a day we'll just push through it took us 9 hours it was a long day 9 hours to get up there we got in up there in the dark the very last 14 km was the longest 14 km I think we over driven definitely with the car constantly getting out I how many times we get out to to check things that were like CU I I always try to listen for things particularly when it's when the road's rough it was just squeak and rattle after the squeak and Rattle and I was just getting out and it was mainly my spotlights my spotlights were getting rattled off yeah and I think one of them actually did come off we lost the cover that's gone I have no idea what that is so I ended up just taking them off yep we stopped in the track but yeah that that last 14 km was the longest 14 km we've ever driven I think it was also the slowest and the map was telling us to go around to the right but the signs were telling us to go to the left so we followed the signs because we know that the map is sometimes wrong and we did the the right choice and we were supposed to follow the signs but when we got there we spoke to the lady and she's like yeah apparently the old rope has completely washed out and they've had people follow the map instead of follow the signs and a lady got like stranded for like 3 days y That's pretty unfortunate up there so yeah the road that that's probably the worst road on the actual Gib not going off but on the actual give where was the roughest section probably between Ellen Bray and Home Valley yeah so there you have to actually cross the jck river and that was one of the roughest River Crossings we've done just lots of big rocks and stones and boulders it was just it's very slow very slow going well not for that one Brave hero in his y 62 he overtook us on there and never saw him again anyway oh well everything's under warranty okay so now to some good stuff I guess where was your favorite Gorge oh that's a tough one because Manning is such a good experience because you have the the the dip at the start the dip at the end and then you have to come back the same way so it's the same dip at the at the end of the track there three swims you got to do and it's on the day that we went it was really hot it was actually yeah it was perfect perfect but as far as the actual Gorge is concerned I would have to say Emma Gorge is the prettiest I think I think you're right yeah as we went cuz we did west to east and a lot of the Gorges are on the the western side and each one we went to we like oh this one's better so we got a bell Gorge we're like this is beautiful amazing you go Manning and you're like man this is beautiful we stopped off at galvin's Gorge which has a place in my heart because there was two dogs there swimming and it was absolutely just the cutest thing watching them have living their best life swimming around in this water like this Gorge waterfall we near left with a black lab yep beautiful but then yeah I think Igor was the last one we did and it actually was the most special it was a see that one it's a long hot walk well it's not long it's probably what a k and a half 2 K in and it's hot it's and it's hard going on the ankles if they're a bit shy but it once you get there grief beautiful good grief like it's just it's one of the prettiest bloody places I've been to and very very very popular I'm just glad that we had our usual luck because as we're walking in end timing as we're walking in all these people were walking out like like there was bus like tour buses there was like 40 of them coming so I was like be my guest how you come and I knew that it was there was 40 less people there waiting for me yeah and of like creating the place but it was it was still quite busy but it was beautiful it was beautiful favorite campsite I'm not sure if I had one I rather like the Pentecost I would say the Pentecost yeah um I would also say I thought that honeymoon Bay was really beautiful and I loved the spot we camped in honeymoon Bay the thing that spoiled it for us at honeymoon Bay was one helicopter blew out awning over our roof which was very annoying two people who camped in The Beach Shack next to us were the type of people who had their generator running all through the night just didn't care about anyone else uh and we're like one up all up at 4:00 in the morning so that wasn't fun so to kind of put a tainted the experience for us as the location's concerned it was yeah stunning it was Mall's was not bad either yeah likeall it wasn't as pretty I don't think not as well but it had a better feeling to it I liked it more than honeymoon personally just because that there was more space to Camp whereas where we camped at honeymoon it was yeah it was on a bit of a hill and there was only so so much um flight space so people were sort of you felt a lot more claustrophobic whereas McGaw I think they only have a maximum of 40 Vans and I think that like at one time and or 40 campers so they um it's it's created without being feeling created yeah well when we were there also there was like there was no one there when we were there for a couple of days really lucky yeah it was just us in the caretakers and a few people coming and going and that's it but yeah I think I think the Pentecost if we did stay at the Gib River rest area that would have been much better one much we did think about it didn't we but we just sort of thought oh let's just get to Dr we got over the corrugations to be honest after leaving mcgow and getting to D we just couldn't do the extra 45 minutes on the road it was nice it was one of the best parts of getting to the Pentecost was that was the end of the dirt so you literally cross the river do another 20 or 30 m of dirt and then bitchman bitchman to the end you know and and that was just a moment of relief it was a bit sad like bit of sweet because the dirt means Adventure yeah you know and then you get to the black top and it's not so much Adventure anymore but it was still still pretty pretty awesome okay so now damage report damage report okay so this is like sort of the last thing of this skid is the damage report so what have we broken the first thing we broke this is my let me let me let me let me let me okay so I want to do this so first thing which was kind of kind of traumatic yeah that I'll um that I'll put in was Bianca's coffee cup it was that was a sad day so my cup was stronger than yours apparently cuz they were put together in the shelf and they were rattl around and hers broke mine didn't so we also had our microwave plate microwave plate we've never had this happen before have we never it actually came out of the microwave busted the door open fell to its death onto the floor stayed inside the little bag that Haner made and yeah just shattered it just shattered into a th000 pieces inside the bag which is great but I did if you remember if you've been here when I was packing up the van and I filmed that and I'm like yourself didn't you and I'm like this has never happened before hope I don't jinx myself hope I don't jinx myself and Y next minute did and do you know what if it was just the corrugations it wouldn't have happened but I really think it was when we were um on the little track between a columbaro and Moon Bay there was some bits where the Caravan was like fully Rock it's a it's a four-wheel drive track it's not just a road and it was rocking and it just fell out basically you're not doing that track with your with your standard semi Offroad van you need clearance pref preferably a cutaway it's um it's you can do it without the Cutaway but just be so careful yeah but if it was just on the dirt road it I don't think it would have happened with our microwave but anyway it happened it broke we ordered a new one we're waiting for we're waiting for that now actually hurry up so we've got a couple of condiments in food mishaps so we have two exploded milk you I've never had that happen before right like I don't know if you guys have ever had that happen but I'm not sure if it's like just the vibrations or the heat or if it was just off I don't know I don't know it wasn't off cuz it didn't smell it can't be off it was it was split too they were just expanded and expanded so much that it split yeah so I don't know what happen like maybe it split and got a little hole and then it just started to expand or was the heat I I don't know but it was I just opened the cupboard in the morning and then there was milk everywhere and I'm like oh no we also lost two cracked eggs yeah two eggs cracked in the fridge um the the pepper sh oh the the fine white pepper shaker was just everywhere and so was the soy sauce yeah I don't think it was so the pepper so it's one of those twisty ones so it just kind of rattled open to the open hole and then fell over and there was just pepper everywhere so yeah it was just annoying to clean um and the soy sauce I think we just didn't put it away properly into the Container so it tipped and then there was soy sauce everywhere but luckily I keep all that stuff in a container so it was really just the soy sauce was in the container and so okay moving along we also got a one of the Press buttons on the drawers the back housing of that had um broken its little brackets that the screws go through uh so the door would just the the drawer would just flap in the breeze basically we lost a dust cap on one of the wheels in the Caravan not a big issue I had a spare anyway a helicopter was hovering over our van at honeymoon Bay never like how would you ever never expect this to happen what an absolute peanut so in around Derby there's an army base and they were having like Army like what's it called like the Wars Operation talsman saber I think was the war games yeah war games and and we didn't recognize the chopper we think it might have been an Indian Chopper or something like that yeah it was an Australian they just come out for a look and the Muppet was just hovering over the top of us and then broke our awning pushed the awning down bent the legs out and then because it was already windy as well it was quite a windy day wasn't it and then the chopper just had to come and make it worse and then the wind and probably the gust from the chopper as well flip the whole awning over the top of the van and to the Aussie traveler awnings credit oh yeah we're not here for like sponsorship but I feel like they should considering um what we've been through with our awning but to their credit they actually make the frame they have these rubber flexible um joints and elbows if it wasn't for those oh yeah it would have snapped the mount to the Caravan which is silicon uh like plastick and bolted to the actual Caravan it would have ripped that clean off it would have done some absolute horrible damage to the to the Caravan and all the you know w car so to to Aussie Travelers credit it's it's it's a tough a tough warning tough warning it is a it's not as simple as a roll out to to set up it's just not we don't mind it because once it's out we know that it'll take a bloody military helicopter hovering less than 5 m away from our van to break it yeah not just a gust like the gusts of wind that it was up in before full that the idiot choer pilot that it was withstanding you wouldn't be able to do that with your standard roll out so kudos to Ali travel for making one hell of a strong warning you know you're never going to make something strong enough to withstand the gas of that helicopter so it it stood up so and what parts did break a numpty like myself could fix it yeah so you just had to like think about it a little bit and we could put it all back together cuz obviously we didn't install the awning onto the Caravan ourselves so we didn't really know how it went back together but yeah we got it all back together and it works yeah it's probably a little bit stretched if I'm honest the canvas and the poles are a little bit like tough to get in and out now but it works it it works yeah after the awning on the way back down from mall I think we got I don't know maybe an hour out of of dries St I started noticing a knock couldn't work out where it was coming from I knew it was a what was causing it I knew it was roughly coming from the front right corner of the truck and I just couldn't work out it would come and go and yeah I was in two wheel drive we got to dy I had a bit of a look around couldn't see anything out of out of place okay and then so we drove from Dale to alen BR station we unhitched at alen Bray at the campground we drove around to Sandy Gorge we parked in the car park we did our thing we came back in it was really sandy so I'd put it in full drive and I turned to get out of our spot and out of the the the car park there was a Big Sandy patch and I just hear I'm driving I hear this ping and a crunch what was that that sounded expensive Lost full drive so the front hub the front drivers front the front right hand Hub had basically given wave okay so once we we discovered that we lost uh four-wheel drive we had the axle just sort of hang in there in the in the assembly just flapped around and knocking the hallway on the corations on the corrugations I tried to um I called my mechanic Dave from All American Drive Line if you've got one of these trucks this guy is your B he knows he's just a Fountain of Knowledge and he's just a bloody awesome bloke um he hadn't seen me for months I called him up when we were at home valy station he gave me directions to figure out what the problem was and possible remedies I gave you two options one of them was to pull the hub cap off pull the the locking hub out the gear and everything and strap the axle up onto the the uni joints and the assembly and um hopefully that was going to get us through it did but all my my straps and the big thick zip tires they all broke so we got to Kara and I just spent a day yesterday day before pulling the whole thing apart I you I I just youtubed and pulled the the the axle out um so that there shouldn't be any problems now hopefully that's that's it that's it done the Gib definitely recommend if you want to experience it yourself just obviously make sure you have done pre-checks before you go make sure your tires are down you drive to conditions take enough food check on the go yeah check everything make sure everything's tightened make sure that yeah you do the checks if you hear any noise check it out that's one thing yeah maybe turn the music down or you may not need you can't hear the music over all the rattling and the and the corrugations anyway yeah so just listen to the to the to your car and and then try your best to stay around 60 so the road does have a lot of washouts in it it does have a lot of changing conditions it does have a lot of like unexpected things ws and stuff like if you are driving at like 80 you're pull up especially with the Caravan you're not going to have time to pull up and then you'll hit these dips at a speed you don't want to and that's when you're probably going to break something so just be be careful be safe and enjoy yourself y take your time to enjoy it yep all right but also be sorry but be respectful clean upart for yourselves if you see anyone being a grub pull them up respectfully but firmly because these places won't stay open for long the things we've seen really get my blood boiling and I'm losing my tolerance for it and my sense of humor yeah you know clean up after yourselves don't just leave fires going when you leave a campsite don't leave rubbish line around you go to the toilet take a bag with you dig a hole take the toilet paper with you put in the put it in your gear bag on in your bin burn it on the fire burn it on the fire just don't just leave it there for other people to to deal with it's just so diff respectful to the environment to other people it's it really annoys the crap out of me do all those things and enjoy it okay um and respect respect everyone else as well yeah so that's it thanks for watching hope these tips have helped and if you do enjoy our content please like And subscribe and we'll see you in the next [Music] one [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Livin_Like_Kings

Views: 12,976

Keywords: Road Trip Australia, Roadtrip Australia, Big Lap of Oz, Big Lap of Australia, Caravanning Australia, Full time travel, Bushtracker Caravan, 4WD, 4x4, full time caravanning Australia, off road caravanning Australia, caravanning with dogs, vanlife, vanlife cooking, caravan cooking, campfire cooking, full time caravanning australia, the gibb river road, traveling the gibb river, what broke on the gibb river rd, best campsite on the gibb river rd, best gorge on the gibb river rd

Id: y1D5olI24Go

Length: 33min 4sec (1984 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2023